A Night to Remember to Forget
by ComicalEpiphanies
Summary: Moose and cars should never be in the same place at the same time. Unfortunately, accidents happen. This is the story no insurance company will ever hear. After all, Foggy didn't put Matt on the list of insured drivers when he picked up the rental car. Some course language and descriptions of injury.
1. Lost

Part 1: Lost

"I think your greatest moment was probably when you told that kid that it wasn't all about him."

The corners of Matthew Murdock's mouth jerked downward for a second even though Franklin "Foggy" Nelson's words had been in jest. He wasn't proud of that statement, but the boy in question had hit a nerve when he'd asked the two lawyers why they cared about "doomed-to-juvi" kids like him. "Well, he deserved it."

"That's totally why I'm saying it was the greatest moment. Your super-senses probably didn't pick up on it, but you got him good. The look on his face when you talked about Hell's Kitchen was priceless."

"Really?" Foggy was right; Matt's senses, while they allowed him to pick up more signs than even someone with working eyes, didn't permit Matt to "see" details like facial expressions. Matt shrugged, a little of the shame of the event in question dissipating like steam off a hot pan. "I didn't really mean to do that."

Matt heard the sound of Foggy's hair brush along the top of his shoulders and the ligaments in his neck tense as he took his eyes off the road to look at his best friend and law partner. "Why? That's what we were there for, isn't it? Sabrina wanted us to show the boys lawyers aren't the bad guys, and I think you did that with bells on."

Matt snorted but his mouth twitched into a small grin against his will. "By scaring them into submission?"

"Hey, whatever works. At the very least, they'll be more likely to get good representation when they get in trouble."

"Now, Foggy, where's that optimism I know is in there somewhere under those horrible cheesy puffs you had for breakfast?" Matt joked. "This whole things is about making sure they don't need good lawyers like us."

Foggy's heart sped up at Matt's confession that he knew he'd snuck the cheese puffs. He'd suspected that Matt might have known that he'd broken the diet he told Matt and Karen, their secretary, to make sure he followed this time. He'd been lulled into a false sense of security when Matt hadn't mentioned it on their four hour trip to the campsite earlier that day. Once again, Foggy cursed his partner's enhanced senses. He mumbled such under his breath, knowing full well that Matt could easily hear it, but taking pleasure in the action anyway.

Foggy continued the conversation as if he hadn't mumbled anything. "You know the stats as well as I do, Matt. Communing with nature and all that might save a few, but we both know there were a lot more than a few kids back there."

Matt sighed and leaned back into the car seat. It was strange sitting up front in a car; Matt hadn't sat next the driver in years. New York City taxi drivers frowned on that sort of thing. "I know. But still. Maybe this time we got through to more than just a few of them."

Matt could almost hear the doubt in the way Foggy's shoulders brushed against the back of the faux-leather car seat as he shrugged. "But hey, every little bit helps, right?" Foggy leaned over the steering wheel and squinted into the darkness to see passed the halo of the rental car's headlights. "At least, it better. Otherwise what the hell are we doing out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Getting fresh air? Enjoying the view of the great outdoors, Adirondack-style?" Matt answered without irony. The dark glasses that covered his unfocused eyes flashed in the glare of the half moon shining through the window.

"Hah. Give me New York smog any day. Where the hell are we? This GPS has to be wrong." Foggy added.

"You're asking me? I've been lost since we left the city."

"What, your super-senses don't include a GPS? You should return them and say next time they should include the ability to feel the pull of gravity." Matt could hear Foggy looking around for some sign or indication that they were going the right way.

Matt laughed heartily for the first time since Foggy had picked him up that morning at his apartment at the god-awful time of 5:30am. "I'll be sure to include that on the Powers-That-Be's yelp page. They'll never live it down."

"Too true." Foggy's tone lost some of its joviality. "But seriously, buddy, I think we're lost. Can you give me a hand?"

"Like what? I can't read the map, and we both know I can't 'see' the GPS screen." Matt tried to make his voice light, but it was edged with frustration. Whether it was at Foggy for putting Matt in the position of feeling weak or his own personal guilt at being unable to help, Matt wasn't sure.

Foggy smacked his hand against the steering wheel. "My bad. I should have asked for the car with the screen reader."

Matt's frustration lifted a bit at Foggy's words, and he was able to smile faintly. "I'm pretty sure they don't make those kinds."

"Well they should."

"Why? If you can't drive a car, you shouldn't have to read the GPS."

"Except in situations like this," Foggy rebutted. "What about your other senses? Any chance we're near a gas station or," Matt heard Foggy twist to look out the side windows again, "a log cabin or ranger's station where we can ask for directions?"

"I don't know. I can try." Matt rolled down his window and gestured for Foggy to do the same on his side. Immediately the world that was muffled from Matt rushed at him, and Matt could smell the fresh, woody scent of spring and feel the empty pressure of a forest at night.

The car was silent for a moment except for the gentle hum of the engine and the crunch of the tires rolling over the cracked asphalt road as Matt concentrated. After a few seconds, Matt sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Fog, but I've got nothing. It's all so different out here. All the trees and vegetation just absorb too much sound, and being in this car is like being in water. I just can't 'feel' anything. I wish I could help, but…" Matt's sentence trailed off as he worked to push back the guilt of not being able to do something.

Logically, he knew his blindness was nothing to apologize for, but it was difficult. Back home, he could run and vault across the rooftops like an Olympic-level gymnast, but away from that environment, he was just as blind as a normal person without sight-more so, because he'd become so dependent on the enhancements that the accident that had stolen his eyes had given him, he was even more affected when they weren't useful.

Matt almost missed Foggy's hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Matt. We managed to get to the camp just fine. I'm sure if we just keep following this road we'll find the highway eventually."

Foggy's eyes were focused on Matt, so he didn't see it coming. Matt registered the shape ahead of them a split second too late. He just had time to cry out a warning and Foggy managed to yank the wheel before 800 pounds of moose collided with the driver's side of the car.


	2. Taking Stock

**A/N: Thank you for the wonderful response to this story. It is officially complete, so the only thing holding back my posting is editing. I'm trying to limit the amount of time on "fun" things (like Daredevil) for the time being, but I'll try to have the next part edited by tomorrow.**

Part 2: Taking stock

For Matt, there was a distinct difference between waking up from sleep and waking up from unconsciousness. When he awoke from sleep, the stimuli of the world cocooned him in a blanket of perceptions. Rising from sleep—particularly after a sufficient number of hours and a not-so-violent night before—was gentle, even in its suddenness. His brain was ready for the input, and so his mind was able to filter and organize the sensations before the feeling of drowning in everything had time to really kick in. That didn't happen when he returned to it felt like different areas of his brain were coming online at different points, and the areas that were functioning flickered in and out in a chaotic jumble that made it impossible to predict so that he could use attention to filter out the unnecessary information. No matter the number of times he'd dragged himself from the depths of unconsciousness, he could never get used to it. His filter was never up before he began to drown in the sensations.

This time was no exception.

For one glorious second, Matt sensed nothing. He was in a void, the world silent like it could only be in these moments.

The first thing that Matt became aware of was the smells. His world was suddenly awash with scents. Pine trees, dead leaves, snow transitioning into the mud, gasoline in the engine, copper from blood—Matt tried to narrow in on that smell, to figure out whose blood it was—was it his? Was there someone in here with him? But he couldn't before it was replaced with others: dirt, fresh moss, sweat, fear, blood—there it was again! Matt fought to keep it in his head, but it was gone again in an instant—carburetor oil, animal feces, burned rubber.

Suddenly scents were gone and replaced with tastes. The bitterness of stomach acid against the back of his throat; the coppery, metallic taste of blood—whose blood?!; the thick tang of adrenaline quickly dissolving; the salty, sharp burst of sweat; the rich redness of tree bark; the dark comfort of freshly turned dirt; the basicity of rubber scratched against asphalt. Then all the tastes were gone and smell was back.

Before Matt could force his brain to allow his mind to focus on the smell of the blood, it was gone and his brain was awash with sensations of touch. There was the smoothness of the faux-leather interior of the car; the pressure of the seatbelt against his chest; the night air hitting his face through a crack in the front window; the heat of a body—who's body? His own?—flowing against his hand; the sudden stab of the ulna bone as it ripped through three layers of muscle; the thump of his heart pounding in his throat. And then, all at once, Matt's whole brain was awake and the world was suddenly on fire.

Matt no longer existed. He was simply an observer, a watcher, of the universe. He perceived everything and nothing. The world was swallowing his physical form. He was invisible. His mind was fracturing—Matt threw up his filters with the speed of thought.

In that action, Matt returned to the world.

His thoughts were still crowded and unfocused. It was taking almost all of his energy to keep his perceptions at tolerant levels. By sheer will and years of training, Matt focused on the present. He scanned his own body, paying close attention to his own circulatory system and breathing. His pattern was off: his breathing was a little shallow and his heart was beating much more rapidly than his standard adrenaline-fueled rhythm.

He sank deeper into his concentration and heard the tale-tell sound of old ships creaking with every breath. He had fractured two ribs—his fourth and fifth on the right side—again. They were making it difficult to take full breaths, but they weren't completely broken. He couldn't hear any sounds of blood pooling in deep layers of muscles or his abdominal cavity, so Matt concluded his circulation was okay, despite the speed.

He turned his attention to his bones again, noting that his right ulna had snapped. It was only a few motions away from the dermis. He didn't smell or feel blood on the surface, so it was a closed break. He could live with that, as long as he didn't turn his wrist or bend his elbow. There was blood dripping down his head into his right eye from where he'd struck it against the side window. It was becoming difficult to blink it out, but the heat and sound of the ripped skin told Matt it probably looked worse than it was. His skull, as always, had held up its end of the bargain and remained intact, but his right zygomatic bone was creaking ominously. Matt suspected that the cheekbone had a hairline fracture. It could have been worse, though. He moved on.

His neck was stiff, and Matt could hear the strain of the muscles as he turned his head. No structural damage, but it would hurt like hell very soon to move his head even a bit. Everything else felt and sounded as normal as Matt could have expected given the situation. He could hear the bruising forming in just about every area of his body, but bruises he could work with. He'd done more with worse.

With his own scan complete, Matt relaxed and took a deep breath. That's when he smelled the blood again. With a start, Matt instantly remembered where he was, and more importantly, that he wasn't alone. He wanted to punch himself in his fractured cheek with his broken arm for forgetting about Foggy. How could he have forgotten about Foggy? There was no time for self-flagellation, though.

He reached out his hearing and nearly panicked when he heard his friend's heartbeat. It was slow and weaker than normal, but present and not yet thready, as it would be if he were already in shock.

As best he could, Matt turned to his partner. He carefully, awkwardly forced his left arm out from where it was supporting his body against the seat and hovered it over Foggy's arm. Having confirmed the lack of heat that would have been there had the arm been significantly damaged, Matt grasped it and shook it firmly but without excess movement. "Foggy? Foggy? Can you hear me?"

Matt was rewarded by Foggy groaning. He shook the arm a little harder. "Foggy? I need you to wake up. I need to know you're okay."

Foggy opened his eyes, dazedly. "You don't need me awake," he said slowly.

Matt grinned in relief and immediately regretted it as his zygomatic screamed in protest of the muscles contracting around it. "I need you to stay with me, buddy. Can you do that?"

Matt sensed Foggy's nod. It wasn't great, but Matt didn't push it. He rearranged himself so that he was as close to facing Foggy head-on as he could. He wanted to scream as the movements jostled his ribs and his forearm, but he swallowed the urge and kept his mind focused on getting better access to his best friend. He tucked his right arm tightly to his chest and spared a second to file away the pain for the moment.

He knew Foggy's feelings about him listening to his bodily functions, but he decided that now counted as the loophole to the unspoken rule of not violating personal space. He cocked his head so his left ear was positioned just so toward Foggy's chest and brought the sounds of Foggy's breathing directly to the forefront of his attention. He forbade all other thoughts from invading his mind and focused all his energy on simply listening.

Foggy's breaths were labored. Matt could clearly hear that his left lung was expanding slower than his right. Matt's concentration broke for a second as he considered the meaning of the unilateral breathing. It wasn't good. He lassoed his concentration back to Foggy, and zeroed in on the blood flowing through the lungs into the heart. His heart didn't sound damaged. Some of the weight lessened in Matt's own chest. He relaxed his attention and pulled himself back.

"Foggy?"

Foggy groaned in response again, somewhat louder than last time.

"We need to get help. Do you see one of our phones around here?" On a normal day, if he focused, Matt could usually feel the faint pulse of his phone, but tonight the pain of his injuries were dulling his sense of touch enough to make that party trick impossible.

Matt heard Foggy's head turn a little before he spoke. "Yours is in the backpack," he breathed. Matt nodded. He'd forgotten Foggy had told him he'd put it in the very front pocket of the pack when they'd left the campsite. "Mine's," Foggy paused and seemed to space out for a moment.

"Foggy!" Matt shouted. "Stay with me here!"

"I'm here," Foggy replied. His voice was flat. Matt's heart sped up again. "Mine's by the 'shift. Was on the dashboard. Can't get to it."

"Okay." Matt brushed his good hand over the console between their seats. His heart leaped when his fingers found the cool plastic, and then turned to stone when he realized Foggy's phone was a touchscreen. "You're going to have to call 911, Foggy. I can't read the screen." Matt didn't allow himself to feel sorry this time for his inability. There was no time. He held the phone out for Foggy to take.

It seemed to be a lifetime for Foggy to grasp the phone. Matt heard Foggy unlock the phone with painful movements. And then the worst words he could have said came out of his mouth. "No service."

Matt's heart fell faster than a meteor crashing to Earth. He swallowed. "I'm going to try to get mine." He twisted in his seat, only to feel the world spin with a swift wave of pain-induced nausea. His ribs wouldn't allow him to get to the bag from where he was.

Matt sucked in air through his nose and out of his mouth to push back the pain. When it was at a more manageable level, he said, "I've got to get out of the car to get to my phone. I'll be right back, I swear. Don't move."

"Not gonna," Foggy whispered. He sounded more hurt with each passing second.

"Right." Matt clinched his jaw and reached around his own chest, ignoring the resulting stab of renewed protest from his damaged bones, to open the door. The door swung open without resistance and Matt stepped out. His feet instantly sunk into a patch of mud.

With measured steps, Matt made his way to the back door and opened it. The bag fell out onto the ground. It took a moment for his view of the world to settle enough for him to locate it. With a stifled groan that made his head throb, he bent down to pick it up and place it on the back seat. He quickly unzipped the front pocket and his fingers closed around his phone. And felt the smashed display. Matt tried to turn it on anyway, praying to God that it would work despite the destroyed screen. It was no use; the phone was completely dead.

Matt wanted to yell out in frustration, but he took as deep a breath as his damaged ribs would allow. When that didn't help, he did it again. And then he put everything else out of his mind but getting them out of this nightmare.

He edged his way around the car, feeling the damage to its structure as he went. There was blood and hair on the back door on Foggy's side of the car. It was dented to the point where Matt was sure they'd just have to replace the whole thing. There was no sign of the animal they'd hit, but Matt could smell the track of blood it had left as it fled. He didn't have time to feel sorry for the beast, though, and continued on his journey. Foggy's door was also damaged, but to Matt's tremendous relief, it didn't feel like the dent went into the cabin of the car. It appeared to be just deep enough to make it difficult for Matt to open the door. If Matt had to guess, he'd have said that Foggy had turned the car just as the moose or whatever they'd hit had impacted the car and the force of the turn had pushed the animal into the back driver's door.

He groaned and his whole body, particularly his right side, screamed in objection, but with a mighty heave, Matt managed to get the door open.

"Foggy?"

"Yeah," Foggy replied slowly. "When'd you get out there?"

"Just now. Look, my phone is broken. I don't think there's anyone around here in a radius of at least three miles." Matt had stretched his hearing to its limits as he'd explored the damage in another vain attempt to locate help. "We're going to have to go find help. That means I need to know where and how badly you're hurt."

"Makes sense." Foggy's voice was weakening again.

"I'm going to have to touch you. I have to feel your injuries to make sure everything is as it's supposed to be," Matt warned. "It's going to hurt, but I have to."

Foggy nodded so faintly, Matt was sure that if he hadn't been so intently focused on him, he would have missed it. "I know," Foggy breathed out.

"I'll be as careful as I can," Matt promised.

"Just do it!" Foggy cried, causing Matt to nearly jump.

"Okay. I'm going to start with your head," Matt narrated. He reached out with his left hand. Under ideal situations, he would have used both hands to give him a more three-dimensional feel, but no way was he moving his right arm from its place against his belly.

He hovered his hand against Foggy's head, just barely allowing the sensitive pads of his fingers to graze Foggy's hair. He focused his hearing on the area just below his fingers. He flinched when his hand sensed the throbbing heat of a new injury on Foggy's forehead. The sound of his fingers putting pressure around the injury was clearly identifiable to Matt as the sound of a partial fracture, likely the result of Foggy hitting the steering wheel. Foggy was lucky; a centimeter lower and it might very well have been a fractured orbital socket. He could have lost an eye. As it was, it was probably the cause of his wooziness, but it wasn't going to kill him. At least, not by itself. Matt moved on. He smelled blood and pinpointed its origin as Foggy's nose.

Matt dragged his fingers in the liquid. "Foggy, I need you to look at this," Matt commanded. "I need you to tell me if it's just red, or is there clear liquid in there too?" Matt held out his fingers.

"Don't know," Foggy's voice was pinched and his breathing was more labored. "It's too dark. Can't you tell?"

"No. Blood is too strong a smell. I need to know if it's cerebrospinal fluid." Matt turned his face to feel for the heat of the moon. It was nearly impossible to sense on a full moon and a good day, and Matt's luck practically guaranteed that the moon wasn't full and even it were, tonight was hardly what Matt would consider a good day. But Foggy had been sneaking looks at it earlier. Matt was almost positive he'd been looking toward the left. That meant the moon was probably to his left now, right? He raised his hand until he was pretty sure it was illuminated. "Better?"

"Uh-uh," Foggy replied weakly. "Not bright enough."

Matt winced. It was crucial he found out whether there was cerebrospinal fluid coming out of Foggy's nose. Foggy was still dazed enough for it to be a possibility that he'd damaged his brain, and even Matt's senses weren't sharp enough to get through Foggy's thick skull to determine if he had brain damage. Matt prayed that Foggy wouldn't remember this moment, and that it wouldn't result in him having to spend a year in therapy. Matt quickly licked his fingers.

The taste of blood was so strong, Matt wanted to spit it out immediately, but he forced himself to keep it in his mouth. He separated out the copper. He tasted some salt, but not enough for the amount of sodium and calcium present in cerebrospinal fluid, or so he guessed. Another bit of weight lifted off of Matt's chest. A bloody nose wasn't good, but a bloody nose that was also dripping CSF was way worse.

"Good news, Fog. You probably don't have major brain damage or skull fracture," Matt informed him, happily.

"Major?"

Matt ignored the question and ran his figures over Foggy's face. He found more blood from a cut on his cheek, but it was superficial in comparison. He moved on to Foggy's neck. Foggy attempted to suck in a breath of pain when Matt's fingers grazed a laceration from his seatbelt on his collar bone, but it caught in his throat and Foggy started coughing. Suddenly Matt couldn't hear his right lung expanding. Matt's own throat tightened, and Foggy started gasping frantically.

Matt's thoughts immediately jumped to his first encounter with Claire. He remembered the tightness in his chest and his own attempts to get air had sounded just like Foggy's. What had Claire said? Matt's memories were swimming. It was hard to focus. Foggy's gulps of air were so loud! She'd said his lung was collapsing, hadn't she? She'd stabbed him with the needle and used a valve to allow the air to escape out of his chest. Foggy was having the same problem; Matt could hear the air pushing against the lungs. He had to release it. But Matt didn't have a needle or a valve! Again, his thoughts started spinning. What did he have around him that could be used to let the air escape?

 _"Guess what I've got!"_

Matt could hear Foggy's voice so clearly, for a moment he thought Foggy'd recovered, but then he registered Foggy's desperate attempts for air once more. Then Matt had an idea. He'd gotten into to the car that morning and Foggy was so excited. He'd spent five minutes telling Matt all about his plans for how he was going to make their lecture to kids at the camp fun.

 _"I got a beach ball, Matt! We can pass it along while we talk, or maybe we can toss it to them to tell they have the floor, or maybe we could just toss it around after our lecture, if we finish before we need to head back! Won't that be fun, Matt? I've always wanted to play with a beach ball. I could only find a little one, but it's going to be great!"_ Foggy had said.

They hadn't actually used the ball. Matt had convinced him that he wouldn't be able to play catch without people getting suspicious of his abilities. It had taken some work, but Foggy had eventually agreed. It needed to be blown up, which meant it had a valve! Matt dashed to the trunk, his own injuries forgotten.

A second later, Matt's hand found the deflated ball. Now he needed something to cut a small hole in Foggy's chest. He needed Foggy's keys. Foggy had kept a swiss army knife on his keys for years. Matt couldn't remember sensing it earlier, but surely his luck wasn't so bad that Foggy had taken it off just when it would actually be handy. He ran back to Foggy.

"Where is your knife?" Matt tried to keep the panic out of his voice, but he knew he probably wasn't succeeding.

"Kkk-eeez, " Foggy gasped.

Matt reached around his friend and felt down the dashboard and steering column for the ignition. It seemed to take forever for his fingers to find the keys, and even longer for him to get them free. He opened the knife and poised it right under the collarbone-where he remembered Claire stabbing him-when he hesitated.

"This is probably going to hurt. I don't know if it'll even work, but it's the only thing I can think of. I'm sorry." Foggy's heart slowed almost imperceptibly, and Matt took that for permission and forgiveness.

"I'm sorry," Matt said again, and then he pushed down, _hard_. The blade was dull, and Matt could hear the skin ripping grotesquely, like a crappy sound effect from a 1950s horror flick. The sound was almost worse than Foggy's attempts to breathe. Finally, he felt the change in resistance and popped open the top stopper of the ball. He pressed it into the hole, and prayed. The ball started to inflate as Foggy's chest deflated.

"Breathe normally. In and out," Matt repeated Claire's words from so long ago. "Just breathe."

Slowly, Foggy's breathing eased, and with it, Matt's heart.

 **A/N: Disclaimer: under NO conditions should you ever attempt to release a collapsed lung using a beach-ball and a swiss army knife. In theory, it'd work (trust me, I'm an EMT), but it would probably do some other type of damage, not to mention be completely unsanitary. This, however, is not real-life, and Matt has more things to worry about than his best friend getting mono. You, however, should call 911.**


	3. Forward Bound

**A/N: I'll have the next part out tomorrow. I'm re-working the last section because I'm not quite happy with the way it ends yet. Enjoy this one, though. Again, thanks for the response to this story. I don't necessarily reply to the reviews - I'm currently in the middle of exams and it's getting busy at work - but I promise, I read them all. They give me a warm-fuzzy feeling, as I'm sure everyone who has ever posted something knows well. Now, enjoy:**

Part 3: Forward Bound

Matt's careful examination of the rest of Foggy's body had revealed that Foggy had a nasty compound fracture of his left lower leg where it had slammed against the side of the car, and three ribs were fractured and two more badly bruised from the seatbelt and car door.

The rest of him was one big bruise, but that he could live with. What was scaring Matt the most at the present moment was that Foggy kept fading in and out of consciousness. Matt wasn't sure if it was because of the pain or something worse. He hadn't expressed any signs of nausea, but Matt knew from experience that was probably only temporary with such a head injury, and he was displaying other familiar signs of a concussion. Matt had no way to tell how bad it was, but it definitely wasn't a little one.

Matt felt his watch. They'd left the campsite just after dinner, which had started at six. Dinner had lasted maybe an hour. Matt wasn't totally sure. They'd driven for at least an hour before Foggy had said they were lost, which meant the accident had most likely occurred between eight and eight thirty. It was now almost a quarter-past nine. Had they really been out here for almost an hour? Time felt like it was both leaping like the jackrabbit and inching like the turtle.

But that was beside the point; Matt dragged his thoughts back. It was getting harder and harder to stay focused as his body ran out of endorphins. His limbs were getting heavy and he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep, but he ordered himself to keep his eyes wide open. Even if the view never changed, if he closed them, he would be one step closer to going to sleep, and that meant one step closer to not getting them out of there.

Matt shook his head and was rewarded with another stab of pain from his neck and cheekbone. The cut above his eye reopened and started bleeding anew. He used the pain to center himself back on his goal.

"Foggy?"

"'M awake," Foggy mumbled.

"Good, because we need to get out of here."

"Duhhhh," Foggy drawled sleepily.

"The way I see it—"

"How does the blind guy see it?" Foggy asked, suddenly sounding wide-awake. Matt felt a twinge of annoyance at the interruption, but continued without acknowledging his partner.

"We have two options. I can leave you and follow the road until I come to an emergency phone or a house or ranger station or something—"

"You think there are Power Rangers around? My little sister loves them! Think they'd give me an autograph? Can they autograph your face? My sister would love to have your face, especially if it's signed by the Power Rangers," Foggy interrupted again.

"Foggy, focus. Can you do that for me?" Matt's head pounded in time to his thumping heart, and his arm throbbed between each beat. It was becoming more difficult to be patient. Matt was relieved when he sensed Foggy's nod, and then felt a stab of shame when Foggy hissed in pain from the motion.

He continued. "Or I can drive us both to the nearest access of civilization."

Even in his confused state, Foggy's heart sped up at Matt's words. "Matt, can you see me?"

"No more than I ever could," he answered honestly.

"Then how are you gonna drive? A blind man driving! That sounds like the name of a horror film. Could you write the script? I'd act in it. I bet I could play the blind man really convincingly. Better than you, 'cause you've got superpowers. No one'd believe you were blind."

Matt couldn't help himself. He raised his eyebrow. "Fog, I _am_ blind."

"Then why do you want to drive?" Foggy asked, completely seriously.

Had Matt's body felt less like a major-league baseball bat after the World Series, he would have put his head in his hands in exasperation. This was getting them nowhere closer to getting out of here. Both of them needed medical attention, fast, Foggy especially. "Look Foggy, I don't _want_ to drive, I _need_ to drive."

"What about you go look for the Power Rangers?"

It took Matt a second to remember to what Foggy was referring. "I don't want to leave you alone."

"I'm okay. See? You should go find the Rangers."

Matt cocked his head and listened to Foggy again. His breathing had evened, but it was still too shallow, likely because of the broken ribs. His heart was beating faster than Matt would have liked, but that wasn't what was worrying Matt. For the first time, Matt realized how cold Foggy had become, and how much the man was sweating. He reached out and touched Foggy's hand. It was clammy. Foggy was talking more, but he was making less sense. He was going into shock.

"Shit. Foggy, there's no more time. I need to get you out of the car." Matt didn't wait for Foggy to respond before reaching behind his partner's back. "Move with me, please, Foggy."

"Huh? What?" Foggy didn't make any motion to help Matt. "I've just gotten comfortable. Things don't hurt much anymore."

Matt nodded, ignoring the resulting pain. "One more reason to move. Pain is good. Pain means you're alive. You don't want to die. Now prove to yourself you're alive." Matt didn't want to think about the consequences of Foggy not moving. He couldn't lift Foggy out with only one hand, and the thought of using his right arm for anything involving moving was out of the question. The two pieces of his ulna were rubbing together in such a way that had he not been "ninja trained" (Foggy's words, not Matt's) to fight through the pain, he probably would have been curled in a fetal position at this point. His ribs didn't even hurt any more in comparison to his arm.

"I'm alive already. I'm speaking to you, counselor. Bad opening argument. Filled with fallacies. Professor Callin would be ashamed," Foggy's words were beginning to slur. Matt could tell he was going to go unconscious again, and this time, he'd likely go into shock before Matt could wake him up.

"I know. But please, do me a favor and get out of the car. You can lean on me, I promise. Please?" The night's activity had weakened Matt's control. Tears of frustration and fear were threatening to burst free. He could fight fifty men and jump off a skyscraper without feeling anything more than an adrenaline rush, but now the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, the Daredevil, the Man Without Fear was filled with terror. He had to work to push it down.

"Please, Fog. Please do what I need," he whispered. It was the best he could do for now.

Matt's control broke and his eyes were wet in relief when he sensed Foggy shift his weight toward Matt and out of the car. "Here, I got you."

Foggy screamed in agony as Matt helped him stand. Had Matt not been there, supporting most of his weight, Foggy would definitely have collapsed in a dead faint. As it was, his respiratory and heart rate skyrocketed, and Matt could hear every broken bones shift in unnatural ways and his other damaged bones creak like an old staircase. It was a terrible cacophony of sound that almost made Matt vomit. The amount of guilt he felt for putting his best friend through such torture was enough to crush him. He felt like he was suffocating. His only lifeline was the knowledge that he had to help his partner into the passenger seat.

"Breathe, Foggy. Are you ready? We're going to move," Matt asked. Foggy didn't respond, but Matt didn't have time to wait for him. He looped Foggy's left arm over his shoulder and Foggy all but fell against him. He was quickly losing consciousness.

"Lean against the car and swing yourself forward, okay?"

Foggy groaned deep in his chest, but followed Matt's directions. As they slowly made their way around the car, Matt talked continuously.

"I know it hurts, counselor, but the trick is to focus on your other senses. Breathe in as deeply as you can—" Foggy's breathing hitched as he tried to do as Matt had suggested "—now do you smell that? What do you smell?" Foggy didn't respond, so Matt moved on.

"I smell dirt. Naturally fertilized dirt. I can't tell you what kind of animal did it, maybe a raccoon? Do raccoons live around here? I've never actually smelled a raccoon, I think. Movies always say that they go for dumpsters, so I suppose they would like the city. I can always smell a ton of garbage, I'm sure you can too. Or can you? I can't remember exactly what you can and cannot smell. I know I used to have the same sort of senses as you, but it's been so long, it's hard to recall what my limits were back then."

Matt couldn't describe how good it felt to finally reach the passenger door. He paused his monologue to position Foggy against the car and then quickly levered the other man into his former seat. Foggy's skin had gone colder and he was starting to shiver, but the temperature outside hadn't changed. He barely moaned as Matt gently guided his feet into the car, even though Matt had to touch the broken leg.

It was only after Matt got into the driver's seat that he found another flaw in his plan. Even with all the windows open, the car was an isolated box. It didn't completely deflect all of Matt's sensations, but it certainly limited them. Admittedly, Matt had never tried to drive, but he'd spent some effort once or twice trying to identify obstacles in front of the car in which he was riding. He knew that the sounds were always distorted when they came in through the windows, and the "images" were blurred as a result. It was like how Matt remembered looking at writing behind a jug of water—stretched to the point of being almost unidentifiable.

Matt wanted to give up. He wanted to put his head on the dashboard and go to sleep. Maybe then he'd wake up and find this was all just the result of a bad plate of claims or even a really hard knock on the head during some nightly patrol. But Matt knew that was the dream. He wouldn't wake up in his bed or sprawled on the concrete this time.

"Solutions, Matt. Think solutions," Matt muttered to himself.

"Have you finished the problem set, yet? I forgot… Why math?" Foggy drawled from the seat next to him. Matt ignored how muddled the words were and that he had no idea what Foggy was talking about. He had to concentrate.

It hit him all at once. The problem was that he couldn't "see" what was coming, because his ports of information were at his sides. He needed to make the information come from in front of him. He needed to get rid of the windshield.

This presented with another problem: how could he remove the windshield with only one good arm and without getting glass on Foggy or the driver's seat?

A groan escaped Matt's control when he realized it was going to hurt. A lot.

"Foggy, I'm about to do something stupid. If for some reason I pass out before it's done, I need you to wake me up, okay? Slap me, or press right here," he gestured to the middle of his forearm, where he could feel the two pieces of his ulna bone rubbing together. "It'll wake me up fast. Got it?"

Foggy nodded painfully, clearly struggling to remain lucid.

"Good. Here I go. You ready?" Matt took a deep, calming breath. He leaned forward and felt the windshield, looking for any weak spots. His fingers found the sizable crack that he'd heard when he first regained consciousness. It was a fault-line that began at the bottom corner of the glass and spidered almost to the middle of the pane. He could work with that.

Matt reached down and felt across the side of the seat. It didn't take long for his fingers to clasp around the position adjustment levers. To his immense relief, the levers were mechanical, not battery operated. He yanked at one of them, and pushed off from the dashboard to give himself the most room. The back of the seat dropped out from under him, making his head spin at the sudden change. His cheek, which he'd all but forgotten about, began to throb again in vengeance. He grasped the other lever and repeated the movement, this time rewarded by the whole seat rolling back. He pushed until the seat was as far away from the dashboard as possible. It wasn't that much room, but there was about a foot between the seat and the steering wheel. It would have to do.

He twisted around, ignoring the scream of protest from his ribs, neck and arm, and leaned over the top of the now almost parallel seat to reach for the backpack he knew he'd left on the passenger side. After an excruciating moment, he found the pack. He quickly unzipped the main pocket and pulled out the sweatshirt he'd stuffed in at the last minute. It was one of his favorites, but sacrifices had to be made.

He rolled one corner of it as best he could and grasped it in his good fist. He then held that up to his mouth and used his teeth to wrap the hanging edges around his wrist. It took a little coordination, which ended up straining his neck even more than the whiplash had, but his hand was finally protected.

Matt was about to stand in a modified power stance when Foggy spoke again.

"Car…drive?"

Matt's heart skipped a beat. His whole plan depended on the car actually starting! "Fuck," he swore. He couldn't help himself. He wasn't usually one to use curse words—his father had drilled into him the importance of keeping his mouth clean—but now was not the time. "Where are the keys?"

"Board?" Foggy replied faintly.

He relaxed his grip on the sweatshirt and shook his wrist until his hand was mostly free. Matt ran it along the dashboard and his thumb hit Foggy's keys where he'd tossed them after shoving the beach ball valve into this partner. Awkwardly, he felt for the rental car's start key. He recognized one of the keys as the key to their office because he had an identically patterned one on his keychain, but he wasn't sure which of the other two was to the car and which was to Foggy's apartment.

He made a guess and shoved one of them into the ignition. It went in with a little resistance, but not too much. Matt awkwardly turned it, his left hand folded over the steering column to reach. It took a heart-stopping moment and a couple of desperate twists, but then the car roared to life.

Matt released the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He didn't dare turn off the car in case it didn't start again. He rewrapped his hand, his neck hurting more this time, but equally ignored.

He stood as tall as he could. His head pressed hard against the roof of the vehicle, and his front thigh was uncomfortably close to the underbelly of the dashboard, while his back leg was wedged between the middle console and the driver's seat, but he was as stable as he was going to get. Yet again, he ignored the protest of his neck muscles and the sharp twinges from his ribs.

Matt tensed his chest muscles, bore down into his legs (sort of), pulled his broken arm to his side, and jabbed directly at the weak point in the windshield while yanking his right fist back behind him to channel the rest of the force into his good left fist. He heard a crack as spiderwebs appeared along the point of impact, even as pain exploded behind his eyes from just about every injury, and for a second, the world spun on its axis. His legs threatened to buckle and he had to battle the urge to vomit once more.

"Not yet!" he growled at himself. He wasn't sure if he'd done it out loud or mentally, but all at once, he felt clammy warmth against his bracing thigh. It took precious moments to register that it was Foggy's hand. He focused his energy on just the comforting pressure of his best friend until the pain receded once more.

Then he did it again.

This time he was rewarded with the sound of glass raining down on fiberglass. While there was a hole in the pane in front of Matt, Foggy's side of the windshield had fractured but not broken. Just as he'd planned.

The air bags suddenly deployed. Matt was shoved backward into the seat and the air violently ripped from his lungs. Matt more felt than heard his previously just hairlined ribs pop under the impact. The pain was intolerable.

He forced air into his nose and out of his mouth, once, twice, three times, ignoring the horrible smell of talcum powder and grease from the air bags. Again, he felt Foggy's hand on his thigh. He focused on Foggy, making sure that the airbag hadn't caused any more damage. Foggy was lucky; it sounded like he'd been relaxed enough that the airbag had just been painful, not harmful.

He used his teeth to remove the sweatshirt that had protected his hand to some extent. Matt was pretty sure he'd bruised the knuckles, but at the moment, everything hurt too much for him to be able to tell. The pain gate wasn't allowing him to feel his left hand in comparison to the agony of the rest of his body.

Matt fought the desire to lean back once more. Matt didn't dare lie back into the reclined position of his seat. If he did, he was sure he'd never get back up. Instead, he slowly grasped the lever to move the seat forward and scooted his butt forward to drag it closer to the steering column. The he yanked at the other lever to have the seat back leap into place directly perpendicular. It wasn't comfortable, but it would work.

At that point, he did what he'd sometimes dreamed about doing, when his friends at school had started to learn. He felt around himself for the gearshift and yanked it two positions down, as he'd heard Foggy do when they'd started the trip. He assumed that meant that it was no longer in park and hoped it wasn't in reverse. He took as deep a breath as he could and readied himself to start. Foggy's voice stopped him.

"No. Wasn't...in park."

Matt paused and then returned the shift to where it was before. He was glad he hadn't pressed the gas yet. He wasn't sure what would have happened had he done that.

He returned his left hand to the steering wheel and pressed one of the pedals. He heard the gears lock.

"Break," Foggy murmured, unnecessarily.

"Right." Matt laughed. Suddenly his blunder was the funniest thing in the world. He couldn't help but giggle like a teenage girl at her first school dance. His ribs protested painfully, but Matt couldn't stop. Until Foggy slapped him, all-be-it weakly, on the only thing he could reach, which was unfortunately Matt's chest. Matt hissed in renewed pain, but nodded his thanks.

"So this is the gas?" He pressed it, and the car jerked forward and began to complete the turn Foggy had started when they'd collided with the animal.

"Straight!" Foggy wheezed. "Turn left!"

Matt startled and yanked the wheel to the left, twisting it frantically.

"Too hard! Stop!" The force of his words caused Foggy to start to cough.

Matt pushed down on the break pedal and the car slammed to a stop. "Crap!"

Between coughs that Matt could tell were causing Foggy's broken ribs to shift unnaturally, Foggy softly gasped. "Gentle…half-rotation…sensitive."

Matt nodded and gently pressed the gas while he turned the wheel. The car slowly straightened. Matt had to remind himself to breathe. He softly pumped the breaks in an attempt to mimic how he'd heard Foggy and cab drivers do it. The car rolled to a stop.

"Now what? We're not on the road, yet, right? We're on the shoulder, I think. The trees on that side 'look' closer to us." Matt gestured to his right. "Do I need to turn more to the left? Get back on the road?"

"Yeah," Foggy agreed. "Slow…"

"Got that." Matt bit his lip in concentration. He thought he'd broken that habit a long time ago, but it had resurfaced. Matt decided to let it go for now. He had bigger things to deal with. "Here we go."

Like last time, he eased the wheel to the left until he heard both front tires on the asphalt. Then he pressed the breaks. "More to the right, now?"

Foggy nodded, and Matt heard his hair rub against the faux-leather interior. "Straighten…forward."

"Got it." Matt did as Foggy had instructed, turning the wheel slowly until he heard both front tires rolling in parallel lines. Then he let the wheel roll in his fingers like he'd heard some taxi drivers do until it had unwound. Then he pressed the gas again. The car leapt forward.

"Sorry," Matt mumbled in response to Foggy's yelp of pain as his back thumped against the seat when Matt jammed on the break to slow the speed of the car. "This really isn't as easy as I'd always imagined it would be." Foggy didn't respond, and Matt broke his focus on the sounds of the forest and smells that he was using to keep straight to 'look' at his partner. His heart and shallow breathing told Matt that Foggy had lost his fight for consciousness.

Matt was completely alone.


	4. Help

Part 4: Help

Matt swallowed the terror that had reared once more at his realization that Foggy was now completely out for the count.

His heart was thumping in his ears and the air coming in from the hole in the windshield was slapping his face like a thousand fingers. At least the wind carried information like the smell of asphalt, which told him he was going straight, or the smell of trees, which told him he'd veered off course. Once he filtered out his heartbeat and the whooshing sound of the air, Matt zeroed in on the sound of the tires against the road, making sure they continued to be parallel from each other. He spent most of his concentration on staying on the road, moving at a slow but steady pace, and the rest on "looking" for signs of civilization.

His attention was limited, like every human's, but his subconscious had been honed by years of meditation to do some of his bidding. He trusted it now as he breathed in through his nose, searching for any scent of campfires or even the all-too-familiar scent of human outhouses. He pushed his ears to their limits, scanning for any sounds of radios or TVs or engines in the night. He used what little touch sensations being in isolated in a car and in tremendous pain remained to feel for pulses in the air that sometimes heralded the presence of electricity. And above all, he focused on keeping his panic under control.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been driving. It could have been seconds, or minutes, or even hours, before he sensed it. First it was just a faint crackle of static in his ears, but then it became clear enough to draw his concentration off of the tires. It was electricity! Leading off the road, into the forest. Matt slammed on the breaks, and he winced when he heard Foggy's body jostle at the suddenness.

Matt opened the door and stepped out. It was more obvious now. He closed his eyes and reached out with all of his senses in tandem. There! When he strained, he could almost feel the heat of a single light source illuminating what sounded like a large sign. He made his way slowly toward the source and reached out his hand. It collided with plywood. He ran his fingers along it, but it was slick with paint and varnish. He couldn't tell what it said.

He stretched his hearing further and then about a mile from the road, down a driveway of loose gravel, Matt heard two people talking. He tried to make out their conversation, but he was just too tired, and it didn't really matter anyway. He heard the squawk of a radio and could taste gasoline fumes from someone driving down the path recently.

Matt opened his eyes and smiled. He'd found help.

Matt hurried back to Foggy. "Fog! I've found some people. It sounds like it might be park rangers! Come on!"

Foggy didn't respond. Matt's relief faltered. Now that he'd finally found someone to help, how was he going to get to it? He could drive down the driveway, but it was much less defined than the road. Matt wasn't confident that he could keep the car steady without the asphalt. In addition, if his senses were correct, the driveway wasn't a straight shot. It bent around and turned unexpectedly, and unlike the main road, shrubs bordered and even encroached on to the path, making it even more difficult for Matt to "see" the path through the woods. No, Matt was going to have to walk it. But Foggy couldn't, not with his broken leg, and Matt couldn't carry him with only one hand.

"Fuck," Mat swore again. He leaned against the car and tried to think. Even if, no _when_ , he corrected himself, he brought the rangers to the car, how would he explain how he'd gotten there? It was obvious that the accident had occurred elsewhere. If he told them he'd driven the car, they'd ask how he'd managed that. No normal blind man could drive, Matt was pretty sure. There was only one option.

It made Matt feel sick to the point where had his ribs allowed it, he likely would have vomited where he stood, but it had to be done. Foggy would understand. Foggy would probably have suggested it, Matt told himself.

"Foggy?" Matt tried one more time, gently shaking his shoulder. As expected, Foggy didn't respond. Matt clenched his jaw and resigned himself to his task.

He got back into the driver's seat and felt around for the emergency break. He knew it had to be around the area somewhere. He found what felt like the gearshift, but was closer to the steering wheel than that. He pulled it back and then pushed it until he heard the mechanisms lock. He prayed that he was correct in assuming that was it engaged. When the car made a horrible grounding noise when he pressed on the gas pedal, Matt knew his guess had been true.

The time had come for the next big hurdle. He got out of the car again and half kneeled on and half stood against the driver's seat before he reached over to feel for Foggy's right armpit. He found it and pushed himself over and awkwardly around until he had a good grip on Foggy's chest. Then he yanked Foggy's body so it was more facing his. Even unconscious, Foggy yelled in pain. Matt paused to listen to make sure the rangers hadn't heard the yell; there was no sign that they had.

"I'm sorry, Foggy. I'm so, so sorry, but I've got to do this. It's the only way," he whispered.

He put his right upper arm against Foggy's left side, wincing in his own pain and sympathetically for Foggy's as he had to push against Foggy's broken ribs, and tightened his left grip under Foggy's armpit. He did his best to avoid the rib that was positioned in such a way to possibly puncture his lung, but he couldn't be sure.

As quickly as humanly possible, Matt tugged. Using strength he didn't know he had, he managed to drag Foggy over the console between the two seats and position his butt in the driver's seat. He hurriedly ran to the other side of the car and carefully lifted his best friend's legs over to the dividing ridge and placed them next to the pedals.

Foggy's heart had sped up in pain, and once more his breathing was labored. Matt wasn't sure, but Foggy's ribs might have punctured something. Matt could smell more fresh blood.

"I'm sorry, counselor," Matt muttered again, swallowing tears of guilt. He wished he'd been brave enough to admit that he'd been the one who drove them to this spot, but he was a coward. No one could know his secret. Matt wanted to hurt himself like he'd hurt Foggy, but there was no time. Foggy was getting worse the longer he waited.

He disengaged the emergency brake to make it appear that Foggy had lost consciousness as soon as he'd stopped. He positioned Foggy's hands in an approximation of how they would have fallen had Foggy been barely conscious after stopping.

His secret as safe as he could make it, he choked out, "I'll be back, I swear. Don't go anywhere."

With that, he ran down the gravel path.

ooOOOoo

It was so much harder to run on loose ground. Matt didn't often find himself running on dirt and stones. The lack of echoes of buildings and concrete reverberations were making it difficult for Matt to navigate. Twice he tripped. On the last one, his simple ulna fracture became a complex one as the bone tore out of the skin as he'd instinctively held out his hands to break his fall. Matt barely felt it.

He picked himself up and kept going. Stray branches and tree roots sprung up in his path; he avoided the ones he could sense, but he knew he was going to be covered in scratches and even more bruises later. At the moment, though, he felt nothing. The only thought he would allow himself was the thought of reaching the end of the road. It became a mantra and the only thing that mattered.

As he got closer, the conversation inside the building got clearer. Not soon enough, Matt was able to sense the outline of a cabin, the heat of light pouring out of the windows, the scent of coffee drifting toward him. He stumbled forward.

His shin collided against the porch. He felt the structure until his shoe found the first step. He stumbled up them. He nearly fell against the door.

"Please! Someone, I need help," he yelled into the wood.

Immediately, the door opened and Matt barely had time to sense it happening in order to stand back. He fell forward into what felt like two warm, squishy pillows.

"My God! What the hell?" The pillows shouted.

"Crashed. My friend and I. He's in the car. On the road. He's hurt. Please." All of Matt's energy had left him to be replaced with the pain. He couldn't block it out. It was too much. It was everywhere. His control was gone.

Matt fainted.


	5. Saved

**A/N: Disclaimer: I am not a first responder, or a Park Ranger. I work in a city that is almost as far from a forest as you can get. I'm basing my knowledge of Ranger medical expertise on what I know police and firemen First Responders are taught in my state, as well as some cursory internet research. It might not be totally accurate, but it makes for a better story anyway. Enjoy the final installment of "A Night to Remember to Forget"!**

Part 5: Saved

The world returned in bursts of pain first. Matt's surroundings appeared bit-by-bit, until, as it had in the car and every other time before, the world exploded into fire.

Matt jerked up. "Foggy!"

A woman was instantly by his side. She was pressing on his sternum, trying to get him to lie flat. Matt let her push him down before he became aware of her words.

"…Mitchel found your friend. He's with him now. I've already called for emergency responders. You and your friend are going to be airlifted out of here," the woman was saying.

"What?" Matt was having trouble focusing on her words. Matt felt his arm, noting his left hand was swollen, and realized it was wrapped in layers of bandages and secured in a splint. It felt like someone with first-aid training had done it. Matt felt the pull of a temporary adhesive wrapping on the cut above his eye. "Where's Foggy? Where am I?"

The woman's breath brushed against Matt's face as she sighed. "Your friend is with my Ranger partner, Mitchel. You're at a Forest Ranger station. Mitchel says it looks like your car hit a moose."

Matt relaxed into the couch someone must have put him on. "Yeah. It came out of nowhere."

"I figured. Happens a lot around here. Your accident was pretty bad. It's amazing you were able to get to us."

Matt didn't bother responding. His ears had picked up the sound of an off-road vehicle pulling up in front of the cabin. He could just hear Foggy's heart beat in the back. He swung his feet off the couch and nearly made it across the floor until he was stopped simultaneously by a desk running into his thighs and the woman putting her hand on his arm.

"Ooph," Matt said as his chest bent over the desk. His broken ribs made themselves known again.

"That answers that question," the woman said.

Matt forgot his goal for a moment and turned to her. "What question?"

"Mitchel and I had a bet going for whether you are blind or not. I've just won a week of the good type of coffee."

Before Matt could reply, a male yelled from outside, "Vicky, I need you! This guy's in shock!"

"You moved him? You know you're not supposed to touch him!" The woman, Vicky, Matt supposed, had forgotten about Matt for the moment and was heading outside. The screen door slammed behind her and Matt winced.

"I hooked the car up to the truck. It was blocking the middle of the road," Mitchel explained.

"You know the rules! Damnit, Mitch, what is it about leaving the scene of the accident like you found it too difficult for you to understand?"

Matt heard the man shrug. "I took pictures, but this guy needs help now. And they didn't hit the moose there anyway, so it wouldn't have told them anything. Now are you going to help me? Where's the 'copter?"

"On its way. You're getting the flack for this, Mitchel," Vicky said, even as Matt heard her look into the car. "Shit. Get some blankets. He's in shock."

Matt listened as Mitchel came up the steps. He didn't notice Matt standing at the door until he nearly ran into him.

"Whooh! How are you feeling?" Mitchel asked. He barreled passed Matt into the cabin and returned with the requested blankets. Matt didn't respond; he was too focused on listening to Foggy's vital signs to dodge.

Foggy's pulse and breathing didn't change as Vicky and Mitchel covered him in blankets. Matt slowly walked toward him, keeping his senses trained on Foggy. He stepped off the last step and nearly tripped. He hadn't been paying any attention to his feet. His ankle gave a mild twinge, but it was nothing compared to the rest of his injuries.

Matt wouldn't have let it stop him from getting to Foggy, but Mitchel had seen his stumble. He came forward and grasped Matt's shoulders. "Help is on the way. You shouldn't be walking around."

Against Matt's wishes, the burly ranger led Matt back into the cabin. He planted Matt in a chair. "Are you okay? Vicky said she patched you up for transport. Where is the pain?"

Matt tried to hear what Vicky was doing to Foggy, but he wasn't sure what he was hearing, so he decided to trust her for the moment and focused on Mitchel. "Better question is where isn't the pain? But I'll live. How's Foggy?"

"We're doing the best we can for him. We're just first responders. We don't have full EMT training, but we've called the ones who do." Mitchel's radio squawked. "Speak of the devil."

Matt heard him unclip the radio from his belt and press the talk button. "Station 5 here."

The radio crackled. "Aid 'copter 2 en route. ETA 5 minutes."

Matt felt the change in air pressure as Mitchel nodded. "10-4. We've got the landing zone lit for you. We're ready."

"10-4," the radio replied.

"See? Oh, um, hear?" Mitchel corrected himself. "They're on the way. Now, I need to ask you some questions."

Matt pulled himself away from tracking Foggy's vital signs. "I figured."

"What do you remember about the accident?"

Matt blinked and rubbed his free hand against his face. For the first time, he noticed that he'd lost his glasses somewhere. He suddenly felt extremely naked.

He could almost feel Mitchel staring at his blank gaze. His father had tried to convince Matt that people didn't stare at them because they were scarred, and while Matt had learned to trust him when he said that, Matt had never gotten comfortable with letting the world see them. Foggy and now Claire were the only people Matt felt free enough around to let them see his eyes.

He made his best guess on where Mitchel's eyes were and tried to get his gaze to go there. He wouldn't let Mitchel see how uncomfortable he was. Then he answered the question. "Foggy was driving, obviously," he gestured to his eyes in an effort to get that out of the way, "and we were trying to figure out where we were. He must have taken his eyes off the road, because the next thing I knew, we were swerving and something had collided against us."

"That would be the moose," Mitchel said unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I figured. I think I lost consciousness for a bit, but I don't know how long. When I came to, Foggy was still out. I shook him awake, but he seemed really dazed. I tried to figure out how he was—my father was a boxer, so I know a bit of first aid," Matt added. "But I couldn't tell much. I tried to call for help, but my phone was smashed in the accident and Foggy said his phone had no signal. We decided, or I guess really Foggy decided, that we needed to get help. He started driving before I could stop him. I don't know how long we were driving until he stopped, maybe 10 minutes? He told me there was a sign that said you guys were around," Matt hoped that was what the sign had actually said, and Mitchel's pulse told him it had been a good guess. "Then he lost consciousness again. I followed the gravel path until I got to the cabin. You know the rest."

Mitchel nodded, and then registered what he'd done and answered verbally. "Yes. I guess we do. You came in and fainted. Vicky assessed you while I radioed for medical and then left to find your friend."

"I figured."

At that moment, Matt's ears caught the sound of a helicopter. It was the most beautiful sound Matt had ever heard. He couldn't help the smile that formed on his face, the swollen cheek be damned. "They're here."

ooOOOoo

Matt hated hospitals. They reminded him of waking up right after his accident and then the long hard months of rehab. They smelled like blood and antiseptic and sadness and exhaustion. But Matt had to admit that he'd never felt more relieved to be in one.

The staff had tried to give him medication for the pain, but Matt refused. He almost regretted it when they set his arm, but he did what he always did to distract himself from the pain and focused on something else.

This time, Matt focused on finding Foggy among all the other patients. It was a difficult task that required Matt to use all of his concentration on locating Foggy's heart among all the other sounds. When he finally located his best friend, he put all of his energy into listening and forgot about the pain.

He heard Foggy being wheeled out of what sounded like an operating room on a gurney with a squeaky wheel. A machine that monitored Foggy's vital signs was beeping at a steady rate in a rhythm that was almost what Matt had learned to identify as uniquely Foggy's.

"He's lucky the swelling wasn't so bad," a nurse pushing Foggy down the hallway was saying. "Dr. Kendall said it could have been much worse."

"I'm surprised his lungs didn't deflate," another nurse commented.

"You want to hear something weird? As I was prepping him for Dr. Kendall, I saw a puncture mark under his clavicle."

"So? He was in a crash. The guy probably had a ton of marks from the glass."

"That's what I thought at first, but then I saw that there wasn't any other marks around there."

"And you think someone did it on purpose?" The second nurse didn't seem all that convinced.

Matt heard the first nurse lean over Foggy and her voice became a whisper. Matt had to strain to catch it. "It looked like someone cut him to release a pneumothorax."

"Come on, Betty, the only other person in the car was a blind guy. How would he have known where or how to treat a pneumo?"

"Maybe he was a doctor or a medic? Just because the guy is blind now doesn't mean he always was. We both know that this guy's injuries should have resulted in a pneumo."

"Occam's razor, Betty," the second nurse replied. "You always jump to the long shot first. I say this guy is just damn lucky."

"Or he's got a guardian angel, I suppose." Betty admitted.

"Mr. Murdock?" Matt jumped and attempted to face the young resident, but the collar the EMTs and doctors had insisted he wear for at least a week while his neck muscles healed limited his movement.

"Yes?"

"Could you hear me?"

Matt smiled humorlessly. "I hear everything, doctor. I was just meditating. Helps with the pain."

The resident sounded both nervous and embarrassed when he replied, "Good. I was afraid we'd missed something on your CT. I called your name three times."

"I'm sorry about that. Did you need me to do something else?" Matt had already been x-rayed, stitched up, and asked about his and Foggy's medical history for the hospital's records. He'd had to play the bumbling blind-man card to explain the evidence of past broken bones on his x-rays and the many scars on his arms, neck and chest from his nighttime activities. He hadn't realized before just how many injuries he'd accrued before he'd begun to wear Melvin's suit. He had to admit, Claire had had a point. He couldn't believe the hospital staff had accepted all his excuses for his scars! It shocked him, even after so many years, just how little people questioned his blindness. How did they think a blind man, even a clumsy one, got a five-inch incision in his side?

"No, sir, I was just going to tell you we're all done."

"Excellent!" Matt felt his ribs and then the new cast around his arm. "May I go see my friend now? The man who came in with me?"

Ten minutes later, an orderly who'd introduced himself as Aaron was leading Matt to recovery, where Foggy had been placed.

"Here he is, Mr. Murdock. Franklin Nelson. He's on your left," Aaron said, placing Matt's hand on the back of what Matt quickly identified as a chair.

"Thank you, Aaron. How's he look?" Matt could hear Aaron hesitate. Matt's heart skipped a beat. To him, Foggy sounded better than he'd been for the last seven hours, but heart and respiratory rates could be deceiving. "Tell me the truth. I can take it."

Aaron sighed. "He looks super pale, and they've wrapped his head like a mummy. His leg's in a thick cast, like yours."

Matt nodded, but fear still gripped his heart. "So what's the problem? Why did you hesitate?"

"Well," Aaron said, "They couldn't do anything about his face."

"What?" Matt quickly made his way around the bed until he could get to Foggy's head. He wanted to touch it, but if it was damaged, he could make it worse. How had he missed something wrong with Foggy's face? He'd been so careful! The only thing he'd found was a hairline fracture. Could he have missed something?

Then he heard Aaron's smile. "He's still stuck with the same one he came in with."

Matt's relief was tangible. "That was a mean thing to do to a blind man, Aaron," he criticized, even as he couldn't help the smile from forming on his own face. His cheek had swollen, so it hurt, but Matt thought the pain was worth it.

"It's not like I could do it to a person who could see," Aaron explained.

"He…has a point."

Matt completely forgot about Aaron. "Foggy! You're awake!"

"Hurts," Foggy replied.

Matt felt around for the chair he knew was close. Again, he found himself smiling as he pulled the chair closer to Foggy's bed. "Means you're alive, counselor. Means you're alive."

"Good," Foggy answered. "Better than dead."

"My thoughts exactly. I'll go find a nurse to see if you can get any more meds."

Foggy blinked lazily. "Meds are good."

"Yeah." Matt stood up. He was about to go find a nurse, noting that Aaron had disappeared somewhere, when Foggy spoke again.

"Didn't get the autograph. Candice will be sad."

The last of the weight on Matt's heart lifted at Foggy's mumbled words. "Next time, I swear."

"Next time, we take the bus."

Matt put his hand on Foggy's undamaged leg. "Promise."

"Good. Matt?"

Matt turn back to face Foggy, "Yeah, Fog?"

"What are we going to tell the rental people?"

Matt's stomach sank. He made his way back to Foggy's head and leaned down as much as his wrapped ribs would allow. "We're lawyers. We'll figure it out, but if anyone asks, you drove to the ranger station."

"Do I want to remember how we actually got there?"

Matt attempted to shrug but mostly failed because of his ribs. "Probably not."

"Matt?"

"Yes, Foggy?"

"Thanks."

Once more, Matt's cheek burned as he pulled the muscles of his face up into a small smile. "Never needed. Now, I'm going to get you the best pain killers they got in this here town."


End file.
